Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    


great conversation about news, media, the Internet, and attention:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-chris-hayes.html


"Democrats are Losing the War for Attention. Badly." Ezra Klein podcast,
with Chris Hayes.

"Chris Hayes is the host of MSNBC’s “All In,” and has written a forthcoming
book, “The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered
Resource.” And he’s a brilliant thinker on how our modern attention economy
works and what it’s doing to our politics."
  

    
Regarding the discussion about headlines, we can't overstate their
importance. They are often the ONLY thing people read. And as was
noted earlier, social media short posts are the equivalent of
headlines without stories behind them.

That's why it's consequential when the Times (a notable offender)
posts Pitchbot-like headlines that are inaccurate and/or misleading,
as it so often does and so often changes afterward. 

Also: Musk is smart enough to have known what his gesture would mean
to actual Nazis. Think of it as an accurate headline into his
character.
  

    
Ezra Klein? None for me thanks!
  

    
Why?
  

    
Likewise Chris Hayes.
  

    
Ezra Klein's drumbeat against Biden after the June debate and his
constant bothsidesing and equivocating and fake intellectualism (all
of which preceeded the June debate and continues in the present) is
why I refuse to consume his crappy content.

Same more or less with Chris Hayes. I stopped watching him because
of his constant finger pointing at the Biden administration about
Gaza. I have no data but I'm willing to bet data would show people
staying home or voted third party specifically because of Hayes. He
also ratfucked Hillary in 2016. 

I came here to point out Rolling Stone winning the headline wars

"Convicted Felon Sworn In as President"

<https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/donald-trump-sworn-in-47th
-president-united-states-1235241770/>

It's behind a paywall. The Times' absolutely horrific headlines are
sometimes all people see because of the paywall. Paywalls are one of
the reasons headlines matter so much.
  

    
Klein was endlessly warning that Biden was too old and in a serious
decline before the debate. I was also really tired of it. Until the
debate proved that he was completely right.
  

    
I'd still rather have Biden with a cold than Bluto with a grudge. 
  

    
The debate proved no such thing McDee and a reminder that we're here
because of a permission structure that was created in 2016 to vote
for someone who is clearly a sociopath as every new yorker has known
since the 80s. In general terms, 2016 Trump voters should sit the
fuck down no matter how much they think they've evolved.

How is the legacy media going to cover the pardons of the 1/6
insurrectionists? Diner safaris? It's going to be absolutely
repulsive.
  

    
Larry, you expressed a similar sentiment earlier, and in response I
pointed out the mainstream coverage of Musk’s Naziesque salutes.

You seem to have settled on what “mainstream” news is going to do,
even when it didn’t do it before.

I think there’s an entire topic in the media conf devoted to
thrashing The New York Times ad hom.

 
  

    
Emily, whether it's the New York Times or something else, we're
going to be reading/watching/hearing these people interviewed about
"why did you do it?" and "do you have any regrets." That seems
relevant to a discussion of the news in 2025.
  

    
I can't be rational or polite about this so I'm going to skulk back
into conferences related to other interests. Nice seeing you all.

Emily, thanks for your gentle hosting touch.
  

    

<pspan> writes:

I think we may be assigning more importance to headlines than is
 warranted.

------

  I agree. I understand the idea that most people only see the headlines,
but that doesn't make them important. If they are skimming that
superficially, they aren't picking up much of anything. Meanwhile they are
being bombarded by heavily funded right-wing propaganda on Fox, from social
media, and just about everywhere here. Sharper wording of headlines is not
going to tip the balance back. I haven't gone nihilist about this, but I do
think we need to be doing more than lionizing pitchbot and digging a little
deeper for solutions.
  

    
Speaking (again) of headlines, here's one from NY Times today: 

"In Dueling Pardons, an Intensified Fight Over the Meaning of Jan.
6"

Self-satire -- and, if you care about responsible journalism from
the top news organization in the nation, beyond reprehensible.
  

    
I cannot really add more than what <axon> and <lperson> posted. I am
recovering from surgery and Klein already got more attention than
deserved from me thus I have no energy left for that bastard.
  

    


somehow Ezra Klein has emerged as a villain? interesting.

i feel as disoriented in this conversation as i used to feel when talking
with conservative Christian Republicans in my family. 

i guess i'm outta here. enjoy the blue bubble. i hope it works.